I Didn't Ask For This
by Kitai Shinsei
Summary: The Doctor has been a father before, and he lost everything. Given a second chance, he lost that too. Now, he is unexpectedly offered the chance at redemption in the most unexpected way. **NOT MPREG**
1. Chapter 1

Title: I Didn't Ask For This

Rating: T

Summary: The Doctor has been a father before, and he lost everything. Given a second chance, he lost that too. Now, he is unexpectedly offered the chance at redemption in the most unexpected way.

Disclaimer: Doctor Who and all trademarks pertaining to it are the property of the BBC and all parties involved. The author of this fanfiction claims no ownership and writes this purely for the entertainment of herself and others. No money is being made off this and no copy-right infringement is intended.

~*~

Prologue:

_The night air was chilly, but the weight settling on his heart was colder. _

_The Doctor, hands in his pockets, stepped out of Donna Noble's home, towards the street corner where his TARDIS was parked, sadness etched upon his face and eyes fixed upon the ground. Sighing, he turned to face the man standing in the doorway behind him. _

"_You take care of her," the Doctor said, a sad half-smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. _

"_Be sure I will," her grandfather replied. His face showed the regret he also felt at the prospect of the man his daughter adored like the weird alien brother she'd never had leaving her forever. Of course he understood the reasons, but it didn't make things any easier. _

_The Doctor turned away and walked a few steps, before spinning on his heel to face the old man again. "Listen... do you have a cell phone?"_

_Puzzled, Wilfred dug in his pocket and handed over the simple Nokia. "Donna made me get one ages ago... but I don't much have time for these things."_

_The Doctor took the phone in one hand and pulled out his sonic screwdriver with the other. Changing the setting with barely a flick of his thumb, he concentrated on modifying the phone's battery, as he had done for his companions. "If there's ever an emergency... if anything weird happens or... or if she starts to remember... call me."_

"_You don't exactly travel within the local networks," Wilfred pointed out. _

_The Doctor shrugged. "Modified it a bit. You'll also find it now plays MP3s and picks up every radio signal within a five-thousand mile radius. Might be useful to you," he smiled and handed the phone back. _

"_Thank you," the old man said sincerely, and for a moment the two stood in a silence that grew more awkward with each passing second, crickets chirping around them unseen._

"_Well," the Doctor said with a jovialness he did not feel, sticking his hands in his trouser pockets, "I better be off..."_

"_Yes, of course, Doctor," Wilfred replied. "And thank you."_

_A hint of deep sadness appeared in the Doctor's eyes and he shook his head. "You have nothing to thank me for," he said. With that, he turned and strode off to his TARDIS without looking back._

~*~

The TARDIS had never seemed so big, so empty. In the months that had passed since his farewell to Donna (not that she remembered him), he had steadfastly refused to allow anyone else to share his space and his life. It was, to his memory, one of the longest times he had gone without a companion – even during the Time War he had always had people around him, always been in contact with someone. The Time War ended, he regenerated and off he went, straight back to Earth to pick up a new companion... and look where that got him: the woman he loved living on another world with a man who was him and yet so unbelievable _not_ him that he wanted to break something.

In his mind he resigned himself to however-many lifetimes of loneliness. He couldn't face losing any more people. He couldn't face more death. Part of him wanted to go into hiding, become a hermit, maybe even use the Chameleon Arch to convert to another species on a little backwater planet to live out the rest of his days.

The rest of him told that part not to be so stupid.

Still, it was a lonely existence. Often he found himself talking to thin air, babbling excitedly to everyone around him, only to realise that the only one listening was his TARDIS, and she wasn't much of a conversationalist despite being very clever in her own right.

For instance, she knew he needed, craved companionship that she couldn't give him. She just didn't know how to convince him.

They drifted slowly, man and ship, through the Time Vortex to places unknown and unplanned. Eventually they came out in the middle of a bright, beautiful nebula, young stars bursting into life all around them. And it was at this point that the telephone rang.

Jolted from a reverie about nothing in particular, the Doctor darted around the consol and hovered his hand over the receiver. It rang again. He picked it up.

"Hello?"

"Doctor! Is that you?" It was a man's voice, hushed and hurried down the line.

"Yes... who is this?"

"It's Wilfred Mott, Donna's granddad... I need to talk to you, it's urgent. Can you come?"

Icy coldness dribbled horribly through the Doctor' core. Donna... had she started remembering?

"What's the time?" he demanded.

"Huh?" the old man replied, momentarily puzzled.

"Wilf, right now I'm drifting through the outskirts of a galaxy somewhere near the middle of the universe in the year nine-hundred billion. I need your exact date and time."

"Oh," Wilfred said, and told him.

"I'll be right there," he said, spinning and banging in the co-ordinates, beginning the bumpy navigation back to his favourite place in the universe: planet Earth. And, indeed, he was right there, barely minutes after the phone call for Wilfred, but several long and agonising hours for himself as he worried himself sick over various scenarios he imagined waited for him.

He materialised atop Wilfred's hill. The midnight sky was clear, the air crisp. The old man stood near his telescope, holding what looked like a pile of blankets, no doubt to keep warm on this autumn night.

The Doctor didn't bother with pleasantries as he opened the door. "What's wrong? Is it Donna?" he demanded.

Wilfred nodded, then looked rather uncertain. "Well... it's her... but... it's complicated."

"Complicated? Complicated how?" the Time Lord asked.

Wordlessly, Wilfred handed over the bundle of blankets. The Doctor took them, puzzled. Then, as he felt the weight, his eyes widened and he looked at it properly, pulling aside layers with one hand to reveal a tiny, sleeping face.

"What... what...?" the Doctor began.

"He's a baby." Wilfred said.

"Yes, I can see that," the Time Lord replied drily.

"He's Donna's. Born last week."

That was news. "So... so Donna found herself a bloke then?" He was almost hopeful. Maybe, just maybe, she had found some happiness.

But no. Wilfred shook his head. "Think of the date, Doctor. It's been nine months since you left her here. She was pregnant then."

If the Doctor's eyes hadn't been secured firmly inside his skull, they would have fallen out. _No... no way... unless... Jack? Did she sleep with him? I wouldn't put it past him, the flirtatious git..._

"Are... are you sure? I mean... she didn't go out after I brought her back...?"

"No. I was too worried about her, wasn't I? Didn't let her out of my sight for about two months... and that's about the time we realised that Fred was on the way."

"Fred?"

"That's his name, the baby. Fred John Noble."

Warning bells sounded in the Doctor's Head. "John?"

"I know, it's such a common name," Wilfred said, "I understand her naming him Fred, after me, but when I asked her about it she just said that his middle name had to be John, but couldn't tell me why." The old man looked a bit uncomfortable. "Listen... he's... is he yours? The baby?"

"What? No, no... no, couldn't be. Donna and I... we didn't have anything like that... I loved her, dearly, as a friend but... there was never anything like that between us. He can't be mine. Fred."

If anything, Wilfred looked even more uncomfortable. "It's just that... I don't think he's human."

The Doctor frowned. "Why not?"

"He's got two hearts."

Shock punched solidly through the Doctor and he nearly dropped the sleeping baby. "Two... two..."

"Hearts." Wilfred finished. "The doctors figure he had a Siamese twin that didn't develop... didn't think he'd make it through the night he was born. Then they realised that his circulatory system is working perfectly and he's healthy as can be... doctors wanted to run all sorts of tests on him when they found out... we got out of it 'cause I claimed religious reasons. I figured if he was part alien they'd take him away, and even if he is an alien he'd still my great-grandson; don't want strangers poking him about."

The Doctor was barely listening to all this. Two hearts. Two hearts. In all her travels with him, Donna had only spent time with one being with two hearts, but there was no way the baby was his. He looked down at the tiny little face again, barely visible through all the blankets. No way. "I'm sorry Wilfred... I'm really not sure who the father is... but I could run some tests..."

"You'll have all the time in the world to do that. He's going with you."

"What? What? No. No, no, no..."

"Doctor please," the old man pleaded. "Since Fred was born, Donna... Doctor, she's started remembering."

Not for the first time tonight, the Doctor felt a chill run through him. "Remembering?"

"Not consciously... but the night he was born, she called out your name, and it was obvious she meant you and not one of the paediatricians. Since then, she's been having nightmares, calling out all sorts of things... she's been running a fever for the past two days. That's why I called. The baby is making her remember."

"But... he..."

"Sylvia thinks Donna was seduced and dumped and that she's subconsciously dealing with it, but I know better. The baby has to go with you." Wilfred sighed, and reached out to stroke the little cheek. "I don't want to give him up, but he can't be put up for adoption here on Earth with two hearts, the government will take him apart, and then they'll take Donna apart."

Despite his protests, the Doctor had to agree to that.

"And besides, Doctor... whether you're his father or not, however Fred came to be, I'd rather he was with you. He's safe with you."

The Time Lord shook his head. "No, no, that's just it, he's _not_ safe. Not with me!" He looked almost panicked. "Travelling with me is dangerous, look what happened to Donna, look what happened to you! And remember the Earth being stolen? The Daleks did that to get to me! People travel with me and they just end up getting hurt. I lose them, every single one."

Wilfred simply looked at him. "Well, you're just going to have to be more careful then," he said. And with that, he turned away and began to slowly walk back down the hill. "You take care of my great-grandson, Doctor. You take care."

The Doctor, speechless, could only stare after him. "But..." He looked down at the sleeping baby again. "But... I've nowhere for him to sleep!" he called after the old man.

"I left his carry-car-seat there for you," Wilfred called back, without looking at him.

True enough, barely a meter from the TARDIS was a baby carrier and a bulging nappy bag.

"But..." the Doctor protested weakly. There was no one around to hear him. He laid the baby, still sleeping, in the carrier. He picked it up, with the bag and went inside, depositing both on the floor near the consol.

"What the hell...?" he muttered to himself.

~*~


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Doctor Who is still the property of the BBC. If I owned it, the Doctor would actually get some chance at happiness. *Fluffles him*.

Author's Note: Sorry for the delay. I was busy actually watching series 4, which I hadn't actually done before. I wanted to make sure I wouldn't make too many mistakes. ^_^ Right then, on to chapter 2!

P.S. Thanks for all the positive reviews. ^_^ It warms my heart.

~*~

The baby woke. His eyes, still blue, opened and peered past the mass of blankets still surrounding him, eyes unable to focus on the vast ship surrounding him. He wriggled and tried to get a hand free. Failing that, he began to niggle, not quite crying, but making just enough noise so that anyone within earshot would know that he wasn't entirely happy.

The Doctor watched all of this from a safe distance. It had been half an hour since Wilf had successfully turned his life topsy-turvy, and he had tried to use the time the child slept to figure out a solution to the various problems in his life right now. He hadn't got very far with that. Now, he sat and silently watched the niggling, wriggling bundle by the consol, and wondered what to do with him.

The seconds ticked by almost audibly. Fred grizzled louder and finally got a hand free, which he promptly stuck in his mouth and drooled around.

The Doctor stood and stepped lightly across the control room, then knelt in front of the baby carrier. He felt a flicker of amusement as the baby's tiny face registered surprise and then tried to focus on this new face hovering above him as he tried to get his other hand free. Hesitantly, the Doctor reached out to lift the infant from the carrier, awkwardly trying to remember the best way to do so.

A memory flashed out the back of his mind. Himself, with a different face, just as awkward, just as hesitant and he held his first child, a proud yet uncertain smile on his face. Another memory, that same face and a second child, and hands so much surer as they caressed the soft skin. He shied away from the memory that came after that; of those children, now grown, burning as their planet burned.

With a resigned sigh, he picked the baby up, free of all the blankets. He held the infant to his chest, the little head resting near his shoulder. Fred instantly quietened, though he continued to gaze at the blurry images around him as though trying to make sense of it all.

The Time Lord shifted Fred so that he was lying in the crook of his arm and he looked down at the tiny being, all pink face, minute hands and slightly-too-big fluffy blue baby-grow. A tuft of dark brown fuzz graced the top of his little head. The Doctor smiled, in spite of himself.

"All right, Fred..." he said suddenly, digging into his pockets with his free hand, "Let's see what we make of you, eh?" He pulled out a small device that he strapped loosely onto the baby's left wrist. "Don't worry, this won't hurt. It's just going to give me a reading of your DNA so I can tell your great-granddad where you come from."

Fred simply looked up at him, content to lie there, the knuckles of his right hand shoved in his mouth.

The device beeped, and data popped up on the consol screen. Removing the contraption from Fred's wrist and whipping out his Brainy Specs, the Doctor peered at it, then his eyes widened, and he had to sit down. "That's impossible..." he said to himself, and then looked down at the baby. "You're impossible."

When the baby gave no sign of protest, he continued, "You're... you've got seventy-five percent Gallifreyan DNA floating about in you, and only twenty-five percent human, and that's imposs... wait... Oh, oh wait! The Meta-Crisis... your mum became half Time Lord, mixed with my regenerative energy and pure Time Lord DNA. The regenerative energy must've triggered... you, and the proper combination of my DNA and Donna's means you're not a clone, you're just a normal infant..." He broke off and paused, and then stared at the baby in wonder.

"And since you're seventy-five percent Gallifreyan, your Time Lord genes are dominant... binary vascular system, extremely advanced neuro-synapses... it effectively cancels out your human DNA anyway. Fred..." he could barely contain the excitement in his voice, "you're a Time Lord."

The baby, utterly unimpressed by this revelation, chose that moment to get the hiccups and grizzle noisily around his fist.

"Well," the Doctor amended, "Time Tot, anyway."

~*~

The Doctor had little idea of how to adjust to his new life. Yes, he'd been a father before, but that had been a very, very long time ago. He was a traveller, a loner even, used to only one or two friends around him at any one time. He'd never travelled with a child, let alone a baby, and didn't have the first clue of what to do with his new son.

Still, he prevailed, for Donna's sake, he told himself. And it was true: he couldn't very well return a Time Lord baby to a woman who would die if she remembered anything about Time Lords. But there was another reason: Fred was his son. His child. He, the Doctor, wasn't the last of the Time Lords any more, and for that, he didn't wish to let that tiny baby out of his sight. So he made do.

His first worry was about the rocking and shaking of the ship. As it was, he could barely maintain his balance on a good day – there wasn't much hope for an infant in a car seat. He solved this problem by rummaging through the numerous odds and ends collected over the centuries and finding a portable force-field. It floated in the air like a giant soap bubble and maintained constant gravity and stability: anything placed within it would remain perfectly stationary, even if the bubble itself was tumbling through the air. Whenever the ship moved, the Doctor placed Fred inside this bubble, just in case.

The second worries were dual: food and nappies. After two days, with the Doctor finally beginning to get used to sharing his life with someone again, albeit one who couldn't talk, he noticed that the tub of formula, which hadn't been full to start with, was almost empty, and they were down to their last four nappies. As the Doctor grimly surveyed the dismal contents of the nappy bag, which had seemed so full only forty-eight hours ago, he looked down at the sleeping baby in his arms, stroking one soft cheek fondly. "Well, Fred, looks like it's time for your first excursion. Can you say that, hmm? Can you say 'excursion'?"

The baby's only response was to sigh softly in his sleep. The Doctor smiled.

~*~

There was a wide variety of planetary types in the universe. Some habitable, some not, and some of those terraformed to become habitable. Some had lots of water, some lots of grass or trees. Some consisted of cities, giant megalopolises that had sprawled out and interconnected until there wasn't any space between them.

The Intergalactic Shopping Consortium was one such planet. Its entire surface was literally one big shopping centre, and it had an entire subcontinent devoted to baby and child care: from wet-wipes to books, to thermometers, to robotic nannies that the Doctor kept well away from.

The Doctor loved places like this, but the problem was that Fred was down to his last two nappies and final bottle of formula, and the place was so vast that the Time Lord had no idea where to even start looking for replenishments. There was also the fact that though Fred only weighed three point seven kilograms, he felt _heavy_ after a few hours of holding him, so the Doctor wanted to get this done as soon as possible and was beginning to feel that he should have gone someplace much smaller.

His confusion must have showed on his face, for moments later a high, musical voice at his side said, "Can I help you?" The Doctor turned to regard the speaker. She was short, almost pixie-like, with pale blue skin that seemed to glitter in the artificial light. Her hair, appearing to consist of feathers, was several shades of green, and she had long, upswept ears with several small golden hoops pierced through each one. Her eyes were large and almond-shaped, and an uncanny shade of metallic violet and they regarded the Doctor in polite query. She wore the neat and tidy uniform of someone who worked here and her name tag read something entirely unpronounceable (it might have been Hrrligahthiarigka) but also added that she "was there to help."

"Um, yes, thank you," the Doctor said. "I have a son, see, about a week old. He was recently... left in my care as his mother..." he paused a bit, emotion catching in his throat as he thought of Donna and all he had taken from her, "his mother is unable to care for him right now." He cleared his throat. "Well, I don't have anything suited to his care, and the supplies left for him are almost finished, and I have no idea where to start looking in this place.

Hrrligahthiarigka smiled understandingly at him. "Not to worry, sir. We have everything you could possibly ever need for little..."

"Fred," the Doctor said, after a moment, realising what she was asking, "His name is Fred, after his grandfather. And I'm the Doctor, by the way. Nice to meet you..." he tried to say her name, failed, and finished the sentence with "miss."

His trouble with her name seemed to give her immense amusement. "If you'll come this way, sir? I think we'll start you off with the basics."

~*~

An hour later, the Doctor had everything he could ever possibly hope when it came to raising Fred. Enough nappies to see the child through toilet training, formula for several growth stages, starter baby food that he'd been assured would keep for a century, toys, bathing equipment, a cot that would convert into a "big boy bed" as Fred grew, a pram and (his personal favourite) a sling that held the baby strapped to his chest which meant he could carry Fred around with him and leave his arms free. The baby was in it now, awake but quiet, content to nestle comfortably against his father's chest, lulled by the dual heartbeats.

It took several hours to get everything into the TARDIS and to then convert a room properly into a nursery for the baby, but when it was eventually done, the Doctor sat in a comfortable arm chair near the cot, feeding Fred out of one of his new bottles, wishing with all his heart that Donna was there.

~*~

I know some people were wondering what Donna's role would be in this story... don't worry, she's definitely going to feature! I've also got some surprises in store, as well as some actual decent plot, so hold onto your computers! ^^ See you next chapter.


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